Australian Unemployed Workers Union || 10 years ago, 18-year old Josh Park-Fing died at his forced labour Work for the Dole site in Toowoomba. Despite a court finding that Josh’s Work for the Dole site did not meet basic safety standards, neither the government nor his for-profit privately owned employment service provider NEATO were held accountable. Josh’s family weren’t even provided normal workers compensation as Josh was technically not an ’employee’.
10-years on, the lessons from Josh’s death have not be been learnt. The program is still punitive and dangerous. The Albanese government still forces hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers to attend dangerous, pointless, and punitive Work for the Dole activities every year or face being permanently cut off their unemployment benefit, which is more than $200 per fortnight below the poverty line. The Albanese government have failed to guarantee the safety of unemployed workers who attend these programs.
According to a recent Senate inquiry testimony, even the Department of Employment accepts that the current Mutual Obligations system is not safe. Despite this, they refuse to release data about how many injuries there are at Work for the Dole sites per year, let alone deaths.
Join us in Thomastown as at the office of Andrew Giles, the Labor Minister responsible for Work for the Dole, as we demand:
- Justice for Josh and his Family
- Work for the Dole be permanently shut down
- Accountability for Those Organisations and Individuals Responsible for Josh’s Death
- A Comprehensive Investigation Into Safety At Work for the Dole
- Abolition of Mutual Obligations System
- Unemployment Benefit Be Raised to Henderson Poverty Line
- Restoration of the State-Run Commonwealth Employment Service
Work for the Dole hurts unemployed people. The alleged party of labour should commit to abolish it (but won’t)
Anti-Poverty Centre || On the sixth anniversary of Josh Park-Fing’s death the program that killed him, and injured countless others, has not been reformed. But there is no acceptable form of coercive labour. It must be abolished in our welfare system, in prisons and in subminimum wage settings where disabled people are exploited. At the end of this page is information about how you can help.
Six years ago Josh Park-Fing died at age 18 because he was doing Work for the Dole at Toowoomba showground. Josh had spent a few weeks on the 245-acre site, cleaning up the showgrounds without proper training, guidance or supervision. He was told he had to do this free labour to continue receiving his $218.75 unemployment benefit. This was a lie. If Josh’s rights had been explained to him he would still be alive.
On the day he died, Josh was collecting rubbish from around the showgrounds. To speed things up, he was told to climb onto a flatbed trailer that was pulled by a tractor. He wasn’t given a harness to keep him safe from falling. The tractor slipped a gear, causing the teenager to fall and hit his head. He died on the way to hospital. Six years on from this tragedy, there has been no justice for Josh.
Work for the Dole is coercive labour. As part of a campaign to abolish it, we’ve been surveying people who’ve done the program. Ninety-seven per cent of participants who’ve responded told us they didn’t want to do it. Only 17 per cent said their rights had been explained to them. Only 4 per cent of survey respondents got a job from it.
Work for free, or starve, which would you choose?
In February this year I was sent by my job agency, CatholicCare, to do Work for the Dole at Ballarat Cemetery. I wasn’t paid to work, but I did get 42 cents an hour on top of my paltry JobSeeker payment to weed, mow and repair tombstones for 25 hours each week.
I don’t want to have to beg the job agency to let me stay home. They never fucking listen. I’ll just keep [my knee] warm.
A government-commissioned Ernst & Young report found 64% of sites do not meet the most basic health and safety standards, so I wasn’t shocked when, on my second day, I witnessed an injury. Another participant, a father of two children who had a knee injury, slipped into a rabbit warren while using a push mower. This forced him to stop. I told him to get a medical exemption to give himself time to recover. But he didn’t want to risk losing his payment: “I don’t want to have to beg the job agency to let me stay home. They never fucking listen. I’ll just keep [my knee] warm.”
Most of the people I talk to in town have no idea this is happening. They’re shocked when I tell them people are forced, unpaid, to clean and maintain graves. In our communities, this program is something of a dirty secret: a hidden part of the labour force, with participants too scared of punishment and payment suspensions to risk speaking out.
The biggest offenders might be a shock to some.
The top three organisations taking advantage of unemployed people – and getting public money to do so – are the Salvos with 288 sites, Vinnies with 189 and Lifeline with 45. Then there’s Ronald McDonald house, Hillsong and countless others who claim to support the vulnerable. These supposedly benevolent organisations are doing the government’s dirty work, colluding to exploit us for their own gain, benefiting from the joblessness that forces us into poverty.
You can find the culprits in your community here.
Work for the Dole is only one cog in the brutal poverty machine. It punishes the victims of political choices, workforce discrimination and dud employment policy, while driving down wages for others. For too long unemployed workers have been used as a political football, consigned to deep poverty and subjected to humiliating, harmful activities.
We have already been let down by both major parties in this election campaign, with confirmation that neither plans to increase the JobSeeker rate. But there is a simple step they can take to keep us safe that won’t cost a cent. Politicians must own up to the failures of coercing unemployed to do unpaid work.
Work for the Dole must be abolished.
How can you help end Work for the Dole?
If you’ve done ‘mutual’ obligations
Complete the survey about your experiences with compulsory activities you’ve had to do to get a Centrelink payment. You don’t have to have done Work for the Dole – we are gathering stories and experiences about all programs. Your contribution will form the foundation of the campaign.
We will be reviewing responses in the coming months and following up with you if you ask us to do so. Your contribution will form the foundation of the campaign.
Allies and supporters
Tell us what you found out by sending an email to awftd@antipovertycentre.org or posting on social media with the hashtag #AWFTD – remember to tag the Antipoverty Centre in your post. Our handle on all platforms is @antipovertycent.
Share our campaign with people you know who’ve had to do compulsory activities while on a Centrelink payment.
Use our map to look up Work for the Dole sites in your community or find charities you support that are exploiting unemployed people.
Contact organisations, or your councillors if the local government uses WftD, and ask them why they support the program and whether they are willing to transition away from it.
Ask your federal MP and election candidates whether they support WftD.
Work for the Dole ‘should be scrapped’, say family of teen who died while working for the program
Chris Dengate and Stephen Smiley || The Work for the Dole program is a “sham”, putting young job seekers in unsafe and potentially deadly situations, say unions, lawyers and the family of a teenager who was killed on a Queensland worksite two years ago.
They are calling on the Federal Government to scrap the program, also known as ‘Jobactive’, which has been in place in various iterations since 1996.
The Department of Jobs and Small Business said it taught jobseekers skills while helping them “increase confidence”, “meet new people”, and “make contacts who can be a referee” when applying for work.
But lawyers familiar with the program said it was “punitive” and “mind-numbing”, and said it left job-seekers in risky situations without adequate insurance and other protections.
Melbourne solicitor David Beattie, who represented several jobseekers injured while on placement, said Work for the Dole was a sham and needed to be scrapped.
“I’ve never met anybody who said they’ve picked up any skills on it,” he told The Signal.
“It’s often just really mindless weeding or whatever, and it’s very rare that you’ll get any induction or any training.
“It’s definitely not meaningful, and I think it’s more about punishment than getting people into rehabilitation or them getting new skills.”
‘No-one knows what they’re doing’
Two years ago today, 18-year-old jobseeker Josh Park-Fing was killed while on a Work for the Dole placement at a showground in Toowoomba, in southern Queensland.
Josh’s father, Iain Park, said his son was just finding his feet as an adult when he took the placement, and said his son had raised safety concerns with him about his work placement the day he died.
“Our last conversation was about four hours before he passed that day,” Mr Park said.
“He was stating that basically he’d hurt his back, and he had been trying to take the day off.”
Mr Park said his son had also texted him to say, “working for the dole is shit”.
He said Josh died after falling from the tray of a flat-backed trailer being pulled by a tractor which hit a bump, causing it to slip a gear and jolt.
Reflecting on the tragedy two years on, Mr Park said he was concerned other job-seekers were at similar risk.
He said his son’s experience suggested people on Work for the Dole placements did not receive adequate training before being asked to work.
“I believe it should be scrapped for the simple fact no-one knows what they’re doing with it,” he said.
“At the end of the day, what happened, happened, and Josh isn’t here to tell us what happened.
“But at the end of the day, it just shouldn’t have happened the way it did.”
The circumstances surrounding Josh’s death remain the subject of a court proceeding involving his employer at the showground, his supervisor that day, and the job agency that had placed him there.
The findings of a separate investigation into the death that was ordered at the time by Jobs Minister Michaelia Cash have yet to be released.
Ms Cash’s office did not respond to an ABC request for comment.
‘No proper training, no supervision’, union says
Most Work for the Dole jobseekers are aged in their 20s and 30s, and it is estimated there are thousands of participants on placements Australia-wide.
Work requirements differ according to circumstance, but many workers aged under 30 are required to work 25 hours a week for at least six months each year in order to receive their dole.
The Department of Jobs and Small Business lists possible Work for the Dole placement sites including retail businesses, gardening and maintenance companies, and warehouses.
It says on its website Jobactive providers will ensure participants in the program receive, “workplace inductions and training”.
But unions claim any training given to Work for the Dole participants is perfunctory at best, and say their helplines are often flooded with calls from jobseekers complaining about lax safety standards at Work for the Dole worksites.
Jeremy Poxon of the Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union in Melbourne said a third of calls to his union’s helpline were about Work for the Dole worksite safety issues.
He said many more concerns went unreported because jobseekers worried they would lose their dole payment if they complained.
“It’s a very unregulated program,”
Mr Poxon said.
“We hear that a lot of these workers aren’t getting proper training, and that these sites aren’t complying with standard workplace health and safety procedures.”
The Federal Government has denied claims Work for the Dole placements are unsafe.
In 2016, a Government-funded report suggested 64 per cent of Work for the Dole worksites failed to meet “average” health and safety standards.
In a statement, the Department of Jobs and Small Business said the compliance scores referred to in the report “are not a safety standard”.
“Rather, the scores were a comparative measure of compliance with program requirements, covering other matters such as documentation and administration,” the department said.
Further, the department said the injury rate on Work for the Dole sites was only 0.85 per cent, compared to 4.3 per cent in other workplaces.
“The number of participants in Work for the Dole for this period was 94,372 [compared to 809 reported injuries]. This represents a reported injury of 0.85 per cent,” the statement said.
The results of a 2017 report have not yet been released by the Department of Jobs and Small Business.
Speaking on the ABC’s Insiders program last month, Labor’s Employment Services spokesman Ed Husic said there were “serious questions” over the program’s performance but did not commit to scrap it if Labor won office.
But Mr Husic has told The Signal the Opposition is “actively considering” alternatives to the Work for the Dole program.
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